


Turning Point

by mangabreadroll



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:56:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangabreadroll/pseuds/mangabreadroll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a possible future, Steve Carlsberg and Carlos have a conversation in the middle of the great war between Desert Bluffs and Night Vale. A one-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning Point

**Author's Note:**

> Note - you may choose to read this before or after: This fic is based around a headcanon of mine (which was further expanded on after a discussion with another tumblr user, dangersocks) in which Steve Carlsberg is the radio announcer of the morning show at Sunhills, a third city in the desert with regular citizens regular enough to question the unexplainable phenomena that happen in Night Vale and Desert Bluffs. Also according to this headcanon, Steve moved to Night Vale to pbtain further research on the city after many failed attempts at doing the same thing in Desert Bluffs, and also to keep an eye on one of Sunhills’ scientists, Carlos, who moved there first for work reasons. Another fic based around this headcanon can be read here http://archiveofourown.org/works/1036312 for (slightly) more details.

In his hiding place under the pizza truck, Steve Carlsberg closed his eyes and waited for his heartbeat to slow down. The sound of a million glass panes shattering at full force exploded to his left. He hoped the vehicle he was using as a cover would be able to stand through the madness spreading all over the streets and the mobs of screaming residents barraging their way out of the town’s available exits. It had to - it had been three hours since the initial, violent haunting when he had come across the vehicle, and it had definitely been unscratched then.

He scowled at the thought of Night Vale not having a working police force. The last time he’d seen the sheriff’s most trusted steeds, they’d crawled into a hole they’d dug over at city hall in the midst of being chased by some bloodthirsty wolf specter, never to be seen again. Seeing as the coast was still not clear, Steve’s thoughts moved on to the phone service in the town. Every number he dialled would put him on the line with anyone in the world except the contact listed on his phone; dialling again would mean calling another person, and so on. He ranted to himself silently over what could possibly support the fact that inefficient phone service was a n excuse for him to leave his phone back in his apartment. Perhaps phone calls only worked during times of mass panic? The town’s way of living had left his mind twisted. He wondered if Night Vale had been founded solely on the purpose of defying human logic.

Next to the truck, eerie wails shot past in blasts of blinding yellow light as the sky changed colour to white for a few short seconds. Steve heard the sound of rain falling, but through the gap between the base of the truck and the funny-smelling gravel road he was lying on, the ground appeared dry. The wails, meanwhile, faded to alarmed squeals that sounded like something a frightened bird would make.

Steve was about to crawl out when something large landed in the truck, rocking it so hard the bottom of the vehicle nearly crushed him under the added weight. Steve gasped; a fizzling sound merged with a disgruntled chewing noise emanated from the top of the truck, followed by a deafening pop. Steve peeked out from his fetal position and saw two legs ending in moderately-priced, mud-covered boots. From above he heard a familiar grunt.

He wasn’t willing to take any chances. Still, he poked his head out from under the vehicle.

The tanned face that came into view was surprised to see him.

"Mr. Carlsberg?"

Steve’s throat clogged up with various responses that fought to outdo each other as the penultimate statement to be made in their mission to protect the different parts of his own ego at the sight of a sane human being, or to be more specific, one of his best personnel he’d not heard from for ages. Carlos’s bloody lab coat and mussed-up hair proved were signs that he’s ran right through the storm of howling spirits and gravity field inversions, though his hardened expression told Steve he still hadn’t lost enough willpower to prevent to him from shielding the last person he could trust - the man who’d given him the order to come to Night Vale in the first place.

Defensiveness made it to Steve’s mouth first. “We need to hurry. The two towns could disintegrate any time now.”

"I know that," Carlos said, rubbing flecks of white powder off the side of his face with a hand covered in the exact same thing. "But you need to get out of the way first.”

"No." Steve felt a headache coming on. "We’re going straight to the center. The spot between our town and theirs. I need to know the truth as well."

"Impossible, Steve,” Carlos argued, and Steve’s heart leapt at the mention of his first name. “According to my calculations, our calculations, absolutely no one can get near Cecil and Kevin now. The energy field around them could wipe your existence clean off this planet.”

"Then where are you going?” Steve shot back.

Carlos’s eye contact with Steve wavered. Steve swallowed to avoid bashing him for what he’d addressed him as. After a while, Carlos pushed himself to look back at Steve.

"I’m going to stop the field from spreading by releasing one of my own." As he said this, a pulled out a cuboid-sized contraption the size of a matchbox out of his shirt pocket. "It’ll move in a direction opposite to theirs once we transmit the signals needed to initiate it - "

"You’re destroying them," said Steve.

Carlos had difficulty returning to the subject of the war. Steve noticed the man’s legs were shaking, whether from emotion or exhuastion, he did not want to ask.

"I’m sorry, Mr. Carlsberg," Carlos began in a strained tone. "It’s not that I don’t believe in them, but whatever the hooded figures told you, about sending a ‘third host’ to absorb the other radio hosts’ powers and ending the war, it just might not happen. It wasn’t a prophecy, it was a solution. And I’m telling you, yours isn’t going to work."

"Yours isn’t the best alternative," Steve returned immediately, his voice quiet.

"You’re always holding me back!" Carlos cried. "Ever since we started this research project, you’ve always been restricting me. I took it lightly at first, thinking you had better things to worry about, like your name, but then you came here as well - “

"You’re a valuable asset to us, Carlos."

"And now you’re stopping me from interfering in an event that could - will end the lives of everyone on the face of this earth once and for all. If I’m one of your valuable, most skilled assets, then I should be out here, I should be able to handle myself out here. Look what this town has done to you!” Carlos pointed at Steve’s eyes. The pupils and irises had transitioned from their original blue to milky white since he’d been infected by a parasite the one time he ran across the desert from Desert Bluffs to Night Vale. “As if sending a group of men here weren’t enough already. You had to come along!”

"I’m the third host!"

Carlos’s frustration died down.

Steve, on the other hand, fought the urge to break down. If it weren’t for his position as a famous political figure with a dignity to maintain, he’s have dropped down to his knees.

He recalled his visit to the dog park, the hooded figures pulling him away from the never-ending void that had been swallowing up the facility for years, him giving up his arm to their leader to be given the mark of the star that would protect him from being vaporised into nothingness when getting between Cecil and Kevin. He knew how much one of the announcers hated him and how much the other desired him, each to unfathomable proportions.

The vision he saw in the figures’ faces - a shadow looking over an empty desert landscape, a normal-looking town with normal-looking residents looking up at a sky full of falling glowing orbs. A man, walking alone, away from the desert and possibly the rest of his life.

Crows squawked overhead. Or maybe they were vultures. Pterodactyls.

Steve looked Carlos in the eyes. In those fading pupils of his, spots of blue fought against the disease he was carrying.

"We’re going together. If one of us fails, at least we’ll have somebody to turn things around."


End file.
